The 2nd time around........

"It's a bloody disgrace mayyytteeeee....." My attention span right now is terrible, worn down by years of idly staring at computer screens. It's my last day at work, my last time driving my company car, having quit in a fit of pique, so my mind isn't entirely here. I have to recap where I am with a deep confused sigh..... I'm in Big W, a chain store that specialises in little more than random availability these days, as evidenced by holding the startling purchase of new grey shoes and a bucket. Why do I need a bucket? Who doesn't need a bucket.... I'm plunged into a conversation by the declaration of things being a disgrace, having seconds before been happily in my own world. I'm aware as I stare into an awkwardly flickering neon light that I'm the only person in this conversation. It also strikes me that for some reason, I've become aware that even the most stridently anthemic pop music can somehow be ground down to soundtrack your experience at Big W. Is that Nirvana? The voice of disaffected youth? In Bloom tinkles over the PA, now the voice of disaffected middle aged bucket purchasing...... "I'm sorry?" I say, as if on polite autopilot. My questioner is a girl far too young to be so old, a blue eye shadow flecked girl bedecked in the corporate livery - I think her name badge said Karen, but that might just be my mind playing tricks. "It'sabloodydisgracethisvirusmayytteee" she says in a tumble of words, not taking a breath. Her eyes are flickering around the store, as she swipes my shoes over the scanner. "Yes...", my words tumble out in a non committed fashion. "Comes from China you know!" she says. "The shoes do" I say. Levity. Classic. She tuts conspiratorially... "The virus, mate, the virus....." I'm tempted to say "keep the bucket" to get out of this conversation...... "It's certainly a problem" I say, making a big call. I look over to a small, shambling man, bent over, glasses nearly falling off his face, struggling with a big box containing a lawn mower. He looks at me as if to say I'm on my own..... Nirvana have given way to some songstress I'm too old to identify.....she trills away merrily..... Time stands still..... She's lost interest in sharing her views now, with her eyes now visibly disgusted I'm paying in cash. Soon I will be sitting at my desk one final time, and then I will return to my bucket, and my shoes, and my collection of items that add up to an existence.... She looks at me one final time though, as she puts my shoes into a bag. She leans over her counter, pushing her chest in my direction, letting her ponytail fall onto her shoulder, her name badge glistening like I'm under an interrogation light. "Don't go to China!" she says, like a final pearl and colonel of wisdom purloined from her 19 years on the planet..... I nod, and she smiles like we've shared a moment. She has food on her teeth.... It bothers me for the rest of the day....

A short history of Tasmania on reality TV (and the worst celebrity anecdote ever)

It's really been a bad day - not for any real reason, although we did have an auditor at work, which has made me realise that my smarm to work rate probably needs some adjusting. I've really been having this sort of pre 30 freak out about my health and it was compounded by that poor bugger from Claremont who broke his neck when he fell off his mates shoulder at the football club best and fairest. I can't explain it - it's just some sort of weird foreboding feeling that I have at the moment. Maybe it's just because Jason Donovan is bringing out a new album. I was pottering around with some Jill Sobule on the IPOD, and decided that this midlife crisis wouldn't be solved with a sports car or a new relationship but with a tasty cheese sandwich. In the shop in front of me was a befuddled, confused old woman who was clearly violently distressed. Obviously, I thought, she must be struggling in life, as she was hunched over and incredibly depressed looking. With all the courage in her frail old body, she held out her hand, looked up and said..."What the hell happened to your fruit salad!" - she gave the girl behind the counter a tremendous spray. The poor girls response that it wasn't popular was met with "Well it was popular to me!" - logic you have to agree with. I'm just amazed this woman didn't start talking about her human rights being violated because she didn't get her fruit in a cup. It did make me think a lot more about when I get older, how I'm going to let myself become the grumpiest old man in the world - I'm going to answer all those bland and disgusted faux nice questions like the ones you get at Boost Juice that ask in a disgusted voice "how are you doing" will be answered with "I'm a Genie in a bottle, you've got to rub me the right way" (the right way being like I have cholera apparently) and since no one will remember the song, I'll probably get shot a filthy look, but I won't care, because I'll be old, and not caring. Then I'll ask where my fruit salad is...

So the other that happened today, while I was skimming down the boulevard of broken fruit salad listening to Mark Ronson, I saw in the window of about twelve different shops support posters (much, it has to be said, in the manner of a lost dog poster) for this Tasmanian girl, Amanda, who's on Australian Idol. Now, I haven't watched Australian Idol for years, so I can't possibly comment on whether she's Cher or a Chantoozie, but obviously, good on her for having a go. However, I don't know the best way to rally some support for a reality TV show is to put a poster in the window that doesn't have the phone number to ring and vote for her. To be honest, I thought she'd gone missing and her photo was in the window to jog peoples memories. I don't think we need another Popstar though (even one that might also be on a milk carton). A few years ago, Simon from Kingston made the final five of Scan'dul'us, the not quite as good as Bardot but a lot better than Scott Cain winners of S2 of Popstars, and his parents, for what it's worth, own the local newsagents where the service is always sharp and to the point. It also has on the shelf "Q Magazine pays tribute To The Who!" hidden up the back, and I think it's been there for about five years. Scan'dul'us thus came to Channel Court in Kingston to perform all their hits - Me Myself and I...Make Me Crazy...um...that song they did on John Safrans show? I went down to get the paper (honest) and there they were, surrounded by girls who will now never admit they went to see them, and they were on a big stage colliding with each other in poorly rehearsed dance routines that made Bruce Springsteens dancing in the Dancing In The Dark clip look like Ginger Rogers. One of the girls nearly fell into the crowd. I hope it was Tamara. It was as this point that a little Aussie battler in hipster heans and a Metallica T-shirt took it upon himself to inform everyone in the crowd that he had seen enough and that reality TV shows couldn't produce real music with real emotion like real pub rock (he obviously didn't see the singer at The Central). After all, they couldn't play their own instruments, or write their own songs. He lost me when he started saying they weren't talented like Powderfinger but he was working quite the self righteous head of steam, as he adjusted his beanie and pouted disdainfully in the direction of the stage. It was at this point that his Mum, who had been standing to the left of him, gave him a swift clip around the ear, and told him to stop interrupting everyones enjoyment, and his sister shook her head and said "Get out of here DUH BRAIN!". It got the biggest cheer of the day. We sure were told to buy a lot of a particular brand of cola though. Incidentally, someone told me once Simon ended up so much in debt to Channel 7, the network now own 50% of the local newsagents, but I can't confirm that (wait for it) Scan'dul'us rumour...gold, as always...

The apex of Tasmanias flirtation with reality TV was undoubtedly when Reggie won Big Brother - who could forget the timeless TV pilot "A great Reggie Adventure" where, Challenge Angry style, you could send Reggie off to do dares? The pilgrimages to her chip shop? The bakery in Moonah that made Reggie biscuits and won an award because of them? My main memory of this confusing and strange time was Reggies street parade through Hobart. Now, because her mainland media commitments, she didn't actually get back to Tassie for, like, six weeks or something by which time the moment had sort of passed. But our local radio tools, Kim and Dave, still pushed for her to get a parade through the streets of Hobart - we had girls at work who were actively scrag fighting to try and get their lunch times changed just so they could see Reggie on her big tractor trailer type thing waving to the peasants. When I had my lunch, it was as the dregs of the parade were conducting a post mortem in the mall, and arguing over the merits of the parade. There was this one girl, who was quite large, and she had decided the best way to honour the parade was to dress up as a chiko roll. She had put a lot of work into the costume, even if she had to write CHIKO ROLL on the costume in black pen just to confirm what she was meant to be, and her flannel shirt was still visible through the, er, Chiko part. It was fine to wave at Reggie dressed as a Chiko Roll, but now she had to walk through the mall to get the bus, at which point, an unemployed hoodie virtually leapt out of nowhere (or Just Jeans, same thing) to give her a massive pay. "Why don't you do MORE with your LIFE!" he said, mouth agape, eyes flashing and darting all over the place. The girl had the not unreasonable comeback of "Nergetfurked", but he wouldn't let up, and chased her up the mall, having a go at her for not doing more with her life - at which point, I noticed that the hoodie was holding in his hand a best of Taylor Dayne CD, and that his jeans were falling down. The only reason the Chiko Chick was safely able to get the bus back to Gagebrook was because his jeans fell down and he had to stop and pick them up. Don't ask me what it all means though, I voted for Chrissie...

Of course, living in Tasmania leads you to have the most piss weak celebrity anecdotes - our celebrities are very local, and no one really famous ever comes down here, so all our brushes are massively with the Z list, such as "hey didn't you used to go out with the girl in the dry cleaning ad?"- and this is mine. Even worse than Kaye Wilkinson the newsreader tripping over in the mall, even worse than Tim Lane getting badgered by a drunk Carlton fan on the Jetstar flight to Melbourne...oh the depths are yet to be plunged...I played netball against Reggies ex, Adrian. Someone call New Idea huh? Now, when we played netball against him, Reggie had left him, and every week when he played netball, someone would have a go at him, and he was pretty grouchy every time someone made a "cashed in her chips" or "it's time to go Adrian" reference. By the time our team played them, he had clearly had enough, and was throwing his weight around, and he was a pretty big boy. He shoulder charged a girl on our team (I say girl, she's way more blokey than me - she likes cars, I like bubblegum Pop, go figure) and while she didn't go down, it was a pretty big hit, certainly as tough as he could muster. Obviously, this required someone to get some retribution, and...well, they weren't going to leave it to the Britney fan were they? In fact, it was the same girl who, about five minutes later, absolutely cleaned him up with a bit Dipper style hip and shoulder right to the point of his chin. Naturally, she was called for contact, but fair is fair. And down he went, not quite like a mighty oak falling down the ground, more like the gentle decline of a Dannii Minogue album - down he went in overacted installments, almost pivoting as he fell on the ground. We weren't that impressed with his efforts, and continued to play netball as if nothing had happened, at which point, a small, tiny voice cut through the Eastern Indoor Sports Centre air, poetic, lyrical, a bit girly...with a rallying cry for the ages..."awwww...dowwwnttt..." he said, sounding like the most broken man in the world...

It may have been a piss weak celebrity anecdote, but at least it wasn't I went out with the dry cleaning ad girl...boy would my face be red...

Tasmanian Intellectuals say no to Chungking and Miley Cyrus

So today, I was really lethargic, I stuffed around at work doing some idle plotting involving Google and, er, Google Earth, as part of my new ambition to join the committee at Kermandie Football Club within 2 years. Now, I've been told there's no such place as Kermandie, but there is a swing park, and a pub, so I'm going to stake out my territory by spending some time drinking warm beer in the pub and making some quips that are on the knuckle. I've been reading various books for inspiration - Alisa Camplins "Flying High" of course (with quotes from Alfred D Souza), Steve Waughs "Out Of My Comfort Zone", and Dave O'Neills "Unfit For Life - A Handbook" (OK, that one, I found in my little basket of books, and I have no idea what the hell it was doing there). Hanging around football clubs and reading books by unfunny fat comedians is probably not the intellectual path in life that I hoped I once may take. I chose a path of pop culture references some time ago (Swoop over Satre my friend called it) and I stand by it. Sure, I can derisively snort at things with the best of them (go on, just mention Bernard Fanning) but my idea of an intellectual discussion seems to be (with my friends) the positioning of women on sports programmes as bubble headed seat fillers (I'm watching one now, interviewing a soccer referee and asking if he, tee hee, does his hair? Even the beautiful devine not quite as beautiful now she's married Christi Malthouse is reduced to being asked "is it cold?" on a weekly basis by her intellectual inferior "Quarters"). I'd love to sometimes sit down and discuss something other than "did you see that girl being sick in the pot plant?" - and then at other times I think, god, what an insufferable bore, why is he talking about the social history of letterboxes (someone really did to me once) when there's a new Miley Cyrus single out? Besides, Tasmania, as much as I've tried, hasn't quite proven to be the Left Bank in my search for intellectual enlightenment...maybe that's my fault, because I've hung around Penguin football club too much, and that's where you are an intellectual if you ask for a Kit Kat...

When I moved to Mt Stuart, aside from living on the edge of a cliff, one thing I always wanted to was go to the State Cinema. The State Cinema is of course our fearsomely indepdent North Hobart cinema which loves to show really smart films from Iran, and it certainly isn't the kind of place where you sing "let's all go to the lobby" as you queue up for a choc top (maybe you can queue for a helping of flavoured salt). I don't know anything about films - as you may have gathered from the constant references to Cop and a Half with Burt Reynolds. I know a fair bit about music, but films, I have no frame of reference. However, my friend told me that it was a good place to pick up, and what intellectually minded mid 20s foreign film buff wouldn't want to hook up with a fresh from Burnie uni student who's idea of culture was to dismiss Weekend at Bernies II as a little lightweight? Still, along I went, I tell people I wore a tuxedo but that's not true - it was everyone else that wore one. Even the female uni students. It was a big night at the State Cinema, the premiere of a new French war epic, and certainly no time ask if Plastic Bertrand was making a cameo (I know he's Belgian, but I felt under pressure). My main memory of the evening, apart from my obvious discomfort, was that people were queueing up, man at the football style, for mugs of tea in proper giant mugs, which was a long way from the 8 foot plastic coke cups of Burnie cinema legend, which people only bought to peg at the screen (who would do that, shameful...certainly I was never thrown out of Space Jam...). Apart from the good quality tea and the tuxedos, I vaguely remember that the film seemed to involve everyone in France getting cholera. Well, not everyone, just the women, and the only way the women could be cured of cholera was to take all their clothes off, lie on the ground, and get rubbed. And that was pretty much the film - got a standing ovation it did, and that didn't happen with Space Jam. One of the intellectually minded mid 20s foreign film buffs called it a harrowing contrast between light and shade, which I guess was why my mate went to see the film another 12 times - all the shade. And all the contrasting light. I went home to watch Lano and Woodley. It might not have had openly pervy buxom women being rubbed with dirt as a cure for cholera, but it had a man saying "burnies, burnies, carpet burnies"...somehow, it felt a little more me...I mean, I only went back and watched the cholera epic 4 times...

I'd quite like one day to do a public reading of one of my novels or some of my poetry, and I'd do it at the Republic Bar, North Hobarts home of intellectualism, hippies, and left wing rhetoric. I've mentioned before, when I first moved to Hobart, it was a pub that had topless barmaids, gun fights and steel bars on the window - now, it's got Tim Rogers playing strummy guitar rock and telling people who request Berlin Chair to get fucked...anyway, the point is, they regularly have poetry evenings, advertised on blackboards on the path. Now, I did a poetry and writing class at TAFE a few years ago, and the big climax was to stand up and read some of our work at some upstairs tea room midway between North Hobart and town - my timekeeping was a horrible issue a few years ago, and I really couldn't find a park. I stepped into the tea room, took in the atmosphere, and then realised I was in the wrong tea room, and went next door. I had to go up a spiral wooden staircase and I was really nervous - when I went to the top of the stairs, I saw a lot of people sitting on beanbags smoking dope, and making intellectual purring thought noises in the direction of a girl who roughly weighed as much as a bottle of Mr Sheen. She was dressed, not unreasonably, as a fairy, a goth fairy in all black, with blood red wings, and she was reading a poem, again not unreasonably, about her boyfriend - let's just say, you'd be amazed how many words seem to rhyme with castration. Suffice to say, her boyfriend wasn't coming out of it well, and with every rhyme for castration, she would swing her wand at a light fitting, and let out a shriek. Naturally, this was going over incredibly well, especially at the end when she began stroking a little plastic cat. Ah, performance art...and understandably, I looked at my own writings, which were very much "hey, what's the deal with S Club Juniors? Huh? Am I right folks?" and absolutely bottled it, going back to my car. I didn't even stop for my special muffin...

Of course, not everyone shares even my slight desire for intellectual discourse - and even I find it sometimes a little uncomfortable - and not just with my friends who are really hoping Chungking break into the charts. This one time I had come back to Burnie for a party and was having a lovely chat with someone about what happens at parties when you get someone drunk and make them laugh for no reason at all, which was kind of intellectual when this girl, and I will preface this by saying she was really really nice and one of my best ever friends, announced everyone had to be super quiet. I presumed it was going to be a cake or a speech or maybe a clown (lousy clowns, lousy lack to tricks, oh what could it be, is it water? No it's conf...er...). I figured that this would be an important moment in our friendship, a time when she was going to get up and deliver the kind of "we'll all be friends for life" emotional speech you only ever see in the final episode of teen dramas. So I twisted in my beanbag, and prepared to be touched (not in that way, matron). At which point, she's gone into her little shelf of DVDs and pulled out a newly bought DVD of...Friends, Series 1. "I thought we could watch the Smelly Cat episode!" she said, which as party stopping speechs go, is up there with "...and I said, really contagious!" (is Gary Larson intellectual? I could never tell). And so, that's what she did, she put on the Smelly Cat episode of Friends, and made everyone sit in absolute complete silence, which, if you've watched Friends lately, you'd realise is Friends natural setting when people watch it...no talking, certainly no laughing, just absolute, complete, perfect silence...

I better go for now though, I think my next door neighbour just got cholera...

The elderly (Everybody Gonfi Gon)

So Collingwood lost, which is fine, I'm not that worried about it, but it was an interesting night in and I didn't really feel like getting my groove on. I'm mostly just sitting around contemplating the decline of American rap music, there seems to be a lot of songs about clubs and licking lollipops and Justin Timberlake somehow seems to be the blackest man in music. I can't be doing with all the references to bitches and hos, it just reminds me of this girl I went to school with - not that she was any of those derogatory terms, certainly not - but there were two kids in our English class one day who, during silent time, had managed to find a pile of Sports Illustrateds and, I don't know, People Magazine or whatever the 1994 equivalent of Alpha was (maybe Inside Sport?) - to cut a long story short, they were simply looking at the swimsuit editions and the pin ups, and commenting on various bits of the female anatomy and where they would stick various bits of their anatomy, Beavis and Butthead style, when this girl has broken silent reading with the classless but still quite poetic arrow in their direction "I guess that's what happens when you can't get a fuck" - no, it's not Dorian Gray for wit and wisdom, but in it's own way it's quite poetic, and no, one of those two boys wasn't me learning a valuable lesson, I was up the back minding my own business reading Wisconsin Death Trip. I think that girl could probably have sorted out the rampant sexism in black American rap quite quickly. Incidentally, I'm also very proud of my book case, as when I went to get Wisconsin Death Trip off the shelf to get some research material, I noticed Flying High by Alisa Camplin is next to the "Wit and Wisdom Of Ghandi" - my moving men have the best sense of humour...

In 1994, for what it's worth, I didn't have a lot of friends. I'm a bit like Norm from Cheers theory on Caspar The Friendly Ghost in terms of how sometimes I have friends then other times I don't. However, I was quite young...christ was I young. Nobody could tell me about the state of music industry in their day or in my day bar I was on the button - Everybody Gonfi Gon by Two Cowboys? I was certainly Gonfi Gonning let me tell you. Morning and night, nothing but Gonfi Gonning. As opposed to Murray Tregonning, the sound effects guy on Hey Hey. Anyway, the point is, christ I was young. To emphasise just how young but also responsible - caught somewhere between a boy and man as it were (thankyou Kid Rock) - we all were, my school used to send us off as "leaders in the community" (in which case, the community was in massive trouble) to go and visit the elderly in old folks homes. This was quite the burdensome task for young me, not least because I didn't have the social compass or thirst for local pride that I have now - and because obviously I was completely embarrassed at seing old people in that state. I mean, the last thing I'd want if I (god forbid) wind up in a home is for some 16 year old to come and ask me how my day was. There was this girl at my school though, called Renee I think, who was really into it, and she would sit in the library and actually come up with questions for the old people for us all to read off cards (and I was the one with no friends?) while I would do constructive things like stand with a yellow jacket on waiting for the bus doing my best sulky teenager impression. One time when were standing outside with paintbrushes (I think we attended the old folks painting class, thank god it wasn't nude model day) she had a massive chip at me for my attitude, saying something like "Yeah, well you should just have STAYED AT HOME! Old people have the right to enjoy themselves!" - constructing arguments was never Renees strong point, and what more could you want after a lifetime of toil than Renee mixing paints for you, but she was rightly indignant I guess, after all, I was a pretty miserable bastard...that said, she didn't apply the same righteous indignation to people who, oh I don't know, take drugs and have little sleeps with no shirt on on the school lawn? I guess people have the right to enjoy themselves...

Anyway, I wasn't the best person to go and visit the elderly - especially as one day I found the pool room and spent most of my time hiding and playing pool (obviously, as there was a pool table - playing darts would have been dumb) and listening to The Grid on my walkman. Renee would just have had me singing Three Pockets In My Overalls anyway. One day though, to combat my pool playing, they paired us up - for the sake of the story, it would be excellent if me and Renee hung out, Captain and Tenille style - and I got paired with this kid called Casey who was the only kid I could ever beat in running races. So it was obviously a bit of a dream team for the poor guy we had to go and visit. As it turned out, the poor old bastard didn't have any legs, so he was stuck in bed, and in the exaggarated version of the story I tell sometimes he was in his underpants having a cheeky fiddle (which is massively untrue, and a slur on his character - he was just scratching). Even I must admit, I felt really bad for him - mostly because he was trying to catch a bit of Midday with Ray Martin and then in came the conversational equivalent of The Blakeney Twins and he had to turn it off before Jeannie Little came on. Naturally, the conversation was pretty muted, and I was hardly going to suggest to him we started Gonfi Gonning. I'm not a great conversationalist to begin with, and the old bloke, he was certainly not doing any lifting. So into the void strode Big Casey, who broke the silence fine style with a cheery "so, mate...get out much?" - between the lack of legs, and the sparse possessions in the battlers room, I was pretty sure the answer was no. So now I felt even worse for him, as he was plainly resisting the urge to kill us both with whatever spirit he had left, so I did the only thing I could...I went and found Renee and got her to spread her own brand of cheer...

The reason I've been thinking about all of this is because I'm about to turn 30, and by AFL standards, that makes me a pensioner and probably entitled to a home visit from Renee. The fact I can remember individual members of Bananarama doesn't seem to cut it with the kids today, and obviously I'm too old for Alix in the Mercury with her coffee and busy lifestyle eating wild boars in Asterix books. To be honest, I'm getting massively too old for places like Isobar and people who can individually recognise members of Operator Please. This cheeky young upstart at work has started asking me about the songs I hear on nine minutes of the 90s like I'm his tour guide to a past universe...mind, he doesn't even know who Boonie is, so he's just thick...that said, I like my vast range of experiences and references, and I certainly don't fancy another crack at being 18. In fact, just the other week, I felt much better about 29, I felt like a canny old fox rather than a knackered old Rocca - I was standing at the little taxi rank across from Knopwoods (I'll get to that place soon) that normally has a queue that runs up the street for ages and then has a massive dispute about whether the rank starts from the top of the street or the bottom of the street. Luckily, my years of Hobart experience told me that with two couples and me waiting for a taxi, some crafty work on my behalf would ensure that no matter what happened, I would get a taxi. So, I went up to the first couple and politely enquired where the taxi queue started - they were at the bottom of the hill, and naturally said it started at the bottom of the hill, making them kings of the hill (too many hills in that sentence, I need a sherpa). With the speed for which I've never been famous, I had a quiet word in the ears of the second couple, a girl in a Presets T-shirt isn't going to be hard to outfox is she, and asked them where the taxi queue began, and they said, quite obviously, at the top of the hill. So with my accumulated Hobart wisdom, I pointed out (can you point it out quickly I know you are thinking) to them the first couple had said it started...well, this resulted in quite the Mercury disapproved punch up between the two couples, with several variations of insult on the girls sexual activities, and while they were punching on, I got in and got into the taxi ahead of both of them...and was rewarded with a Sudanese taxi driver who got lost trying to find the Southern Outlet...

Still, at least when Renee comes to visit, I'll remember to put some pants on...

Duelling Banjos (or Corporate Bakeries Still Suck)

So today I'm sitting in my car, driving obviously because if I was just sitting there I'd get tooted, and the bridge is allegedly closed according to our breakfast radio hilarious duo who are talking this complete drivel that I eventually turn off, not just because I can see quite obviously it's open and because they talk about how much they are loving Brian McFaddens new single and my head is just full of drivel to begin with because I can't sleep and I've got this confused tired expression on my face like the bass player from the Living End trying to do backing vocals - I often think when I'm driving over the bridge about that time the boat crashed into it and knocked it over in the 70s because the captain was incredibly drunk, and how few boats I actually see these days, and I sometimes think about what happened to Brashs or I sit and get myself all pumped up for the finals and think if Early Dawes gets dropped for Rocca would they bring in McAff...then the traffic in front of me comes to a complete stop and it's time to slam the brakes on. The bridge is where I have most of my thinking time, when I don't drive semi-legally listening to Melissa Mars or White Lillies or, I don't know, Real American by Hulk Hogan on the IPOD. To be honest, Tasmanian drivers are pretty useless - I've adopted my Dads tried and true philosophy with cars "right up me arse" of just driving a lot slower - of course, this course of action will one day get me killed in a horrible road rage incident, but what the hell - and I've become a really bad person when I drive because I don't let anyone in at all, hence contributing to the problem not solving it. I think about the year Freddo had a creamy Blueberry version, and wonder if I could still get one. Not the standard blueberry one, but this extra thick whipped blueberry mousse style that wasn't the usual drippy liquid you get in a Freddo...and then, my conscience kicks in, and if you want to know the voice of my conscience, imagine Kathryn Harby crossed with Debbie Black...it resonates in my head to this day....

Banjos, should you not know, is a franchised chain of bakeries and eateries that down here in Tasmania inspire, if not quite the fervour of the day in 1992 Burnie got a Maccas, at least some form of passionate devotion from pensioners who swear by it in that uniquely "we like everything safe and tepid" kind of pensioner way. Why take a risk with that home made hedgehog slice when you can have a mildly appetising "worlds best" sausage roll (The Albanians beg to differ). Actually, that's a little harsh, but the reason I sometimes talk like this is because (here we go again) I used to know this girl who I would see on the bus to work. We got to chatting, as you do, before I became rigidly terrified of buses and people cutting my head off up the back and before I scared people on buses with my "Hey! Remember City South! What a footy team!" line of banter. I can't even remember what she looked like as she was all teeth and voice, but you know, I'm surprised at myself that I was talking to a stranger so there must have been something to her. I think it was because she knew who Catatonia were, maybe that was it. As it happens, she would lecture me pretty regularly about the horrific nature of multi national and national and even state based franchises, and she would always have No Logo by Naomi Klein (which if you remember became a logo) on hand to rescue her arguments. Everything with her always had to be single identity mom and pop (she was also against Americanisation of our language - oh wait, did that joke) stores selling local products with local service and nothing else. She was always telling me about the quality of the sliced hedgehog (that's a chocolate slice foreigners, we're not that crazy down here, despite what it says in Lonely Planet) in little Grandma Pakingas bakery down in the Fingal Valley and how she was going out of business because there was a Banjos built on the grazing land of the sparrow in Avoca, and...obviously, all tedious nonsense in hindsight, especially since I think a Tasmanian owned Banjos anyway, but she had picked her target with me. Gosh darn it, there's local pride at stake, little Grandma Pakinga has been making those hedgehog slices for 20 years! She's a key part of the local community! She raises funds for the local football team! How dare you turn up with your slick advertising campaigns and your sub Bakers Delight slices and drive her out of town! I was naturally furious, in that fantastically unfurious way of the early 20s male, in that you get quite indignant but forget about twenty minutes later because the cute girl in Tracks Record store is putting up posters. The last I saw of this girl she was organising a rally in Brisbane against a corporate whistle company (no, really). Still, she did re-inforce several of my beliefs in local pride and local businesses and whenever I had a purchasing conscience moment, it was her voice that nagged me - at least, until I saw her two years later, jogging out of Chickenfeed (franchise! Driving cheap salvos shops out of business! Or something!) in a Nike tracksuit (Naomi wouldn't have liked that). Naturally, I felt compelled to question the melting of her beliefs, and she simply held up a bucket of pegs and pointed to the price tag, and indeed, Naomi Klein, for all her sound and fury against the corporate machine, wasn't going to question a full bucket of pegs for 99c, regardless of their ethical origin...

My local Banjos is really weird - I know Granny Pakinga needs the business, and I should buy local, but sometimes I get a bit Sophie Monk at KFC and can't help myself - I can't get a handle on it, or it's consistency. Sometimes the sausage rolls are great, sometimes they are terrible. Sometimes there's no sandwiches, sometimes there's so many sandwiches you think Jesus is turning water into thick crust ham and cheese. Sometimes, the girls are lovely and sometimes they are terrible. What I love in life is a consistent shop - I know if I go and get a Boost Juice, I certainly won't get a boosted ego from the actress/model/slash I'm doing my time until Tyra Banks discovers me girl serving me. Against that, I can guarantee that if I go into my local pub in Kingston, they'll ask me if I want herb bread, even if I've ordered a chocolate mousse and a coke. My only other problem with my local Banjos is they always ask how how my day is - the surly ones and the cheerful ones, always the same question. It's one of those questions I spend too long thinking about, when the correct answer is good thankyou, how are you? I'd love to give them an honest opinion after careful consideration. Actually, the real problem is queue jumpers. To get served early in Banjos where I work, you need Tetris like dexterity - it's like Frogger, you've got leap over the moving people just to get a powdered mudcake. There's this one old lady who's an absolute maestro at it. There could be a queue of a hundred and she'd work her way to the front. I watched her today, her trick is usually to jogamble to the counter, in an opposite corner to the queue, huddled over like a munchkin, some kind of woolen hand knitted blanket over her shoulders, and then feign an interest in the little charity tin up the front or to pretend she wants to get a sample slice of Boston Bun from the counter, and obviously everyone gives her some air as she ponders the merits of spending her last 3 bucks on a Daffodil Day pen (what a good egg) and then, with the reflexes of a Batkovic, she's suddenly alive, blanket thrown aside, singing like Shirley Bassey that she wants a pie. It's genius, it really is. The bewildered or the patient just never expect that kind of move. As an aside, my Dad is one of those bewildered, and to this day he still doesn't understand why, on a 37 degree day in Burnie when I had to sit in the car in a suit going to a job interview (it was so hot we got Melbourne TV, always a treat), when I asked for a "tasty treat" from the local shop, and expected a Calippo or a Solero, and he came back proudly with a pound of mince, I wasn't over the moon...

Anyway, so I was in there today, felt like a sandwich, and she was obviously in prime fool the bewildered position, and there was no way out of the queue, the long snaking queue, and I was thinking about how jaunty I would make my "good thanks, how are you", but my mind was already wandering off, to the last time I had been in a Banjos queue this long - it was the day Tassie hosted the Sheffield Shield final against NSW at Bellerive, the sun was shining, my IPOD was shining, the Shining was mildly disappointing the first time I saw it, and I was in town (mainlanders, from now on, this entirely refers to Hobart) having breakfast with a friend of mine before the eternal Bellerive struggle of beer vs light beer began. I obviously proved my masculine credentials by ordering a hearty manly breakfast of waffles with a hint of raspberry jam. My friend ordered the more North West Coast option of 245 things deep fried in chip batter (or is that the Scottish option?) including eggs and bacon and several types of toast (I forgot to ask if they deep fried Apricot Ripple cornettos). So we sat and waited, and enjoyed the magic as his breakfast was brought our ingredient by ingredient. Even the tomato got an individual entrance (he didn't appreciate my is Joan Rivers hosting a red carpet entry special, mostly because he didn't know who Joan Rivers was). As the beginning of the match approached, there was still no toast. The bacon was stringy and cold, the eggs were tepid, the waffles were bloody delicious now you ask, and my conversation was fluid with a hint of cheek and a garnish of repetition. After 45 minutes, there was still no toast, and of course, we were getting anxious to see some cricket, so, politely, he asked the Banjos girl to find out what was going on, and as she wandered off twirling gum around her finger, she got the manager, a small and frail fan of the band Jet (can't you just tell?) and he said, in full seriousness and from the bottom of his little heart, "I'm so sorry, this normally doesn't happen...the toast chef has called in sick"...and preceded to make it up to him by helping him to another serve of delicious cold stringy bacon. Obviously, no toast ever came, what with the toast chef crisis...lucky the bacon chef was on hand...

And they don't do sliced hedgehog either...that chef quit in 1995...fight the power...

Tasmania believes, through the power of choc

I've spent most of the day absolutely on edge, mostly because firstly I had a really weird dream that I was drafted to the Gold Coast AFL team and ended up with Cheryl Haworth as a celebrity girlfriend (which was fine, the problem was the team was coached by Mick Malthouse), and then the first thing I saw on the news was a man had his head cut off on a bus (there but for the grace of Metro), then I found out Jess Veronica was involved in some kind of weird porn thing (I thought they were such nice girls) and then for some reason I read that there would never be another Mars Bar on sale ever again in Tasmania. I'd stopped eating Mars Bars about 15 years ago, but the thought that I wasn't allowed to eat another one was a bit harsh, it's like denying Anne Maree Cooksley a glass of champagne at a film premiere. However, salvation was at hand - you could still get Mars Bars, thank God for that, however, by Government decree, they wouldn't be called Mars Bars. The wrapper would look like a Mars Bar, the taste would be that of a Mars Bar, but in an L Ron Hubbard style twist, the product would be called the "Believe Bar" - straight out of Scientology, this mysterious chocolate product would now implore us to believe, to have faith, and in my case go back to sleep and think about my wedding to Cheryl Haworth...

Don't worry though Mars Bar fans, it's all part of a plan - to get a Tasmanian team into the AFL, Mars Bar are tipping 4 million bucks into our campaign and renaming the Mars Bar the Believe bar to make us all believe in the bid. There's an SMS code on the wapper, and you can SMS someone (not Andrew Demetriou, he hates us, he disrespects us, he loathes us etc) and somehow if kids eat a lot of chocolate, this will work and we'll get a football team in the AFL. I love the fact that fat kids can help us get an elite team of athletes down here. They've come up with a jumper, and we'll almost certainly at some point drag Alistair Lynch in to hold up a bunch of Believe Bars in the paper soon. I'd like to think that Tasmanians are too media savvy to think of this as anything but a nice gesture, albeit quite a lame one, but already I heard two girls in a certain shop where a certain girl with blue eye shadow works (she was looking fine today) talking excitedly about it. They certainly believed. I wonder if I ate one, if I would believe Josh Fraser could be a ruckman. I know if I was at my school, the commercial sell out hot bed that it was, we'd have not only been deluged by the Believe Bar push, someone would have given us a talk, we'd have had to do a project on football (and Mars) and the prize for winning would be...more Mars Bars. I can see it clear as day - but as I said, good to see fat kids getting involved, I would have thought knowing Paula Wriedt (yes, THAT one Sam Newman) she'd have spent 4 million bucks on a salad based sponsor.

The problem is, these things never work. I'm glad Mars are on board trying to talk to the arrogant wall that is Andrew Demetriou, but seriously, mascots, gestures, campaigns, slogans, logos - never ever work. No matter what mascot the school dentist tried to get to us with, to get us to clean our teeth, we ignored it. You can get a slogan like "Not happy Jan" into the everyday conversation of bogans, but buggered if they know what it's advertising. Said bogans will buy a Believe bar, and never in a million years SMS the wrapper code. A chocolate bar isn't going to help us get a team, it's just a nice dream. My favourite ever mascot without a doubt was the infamous Scotticus, the Daily Record mascot for Scotland at the 1990 World Cup. I say infamous because some poor bugger had to dress up as him, and as far as I can remember, it was some poor bugger standing in an Ayshire field in a toga and a tartan bunnet. You'd think at the very least they'd give him a shell suit or a nice warm jumper. Kids were kicking him up the arse and trying to steal his toga. He was created by a cartoonist, and he was meant to fire up a nation and lead us to glory - we lost to Costa Rica in the first game, and no one ever saw him again. I like to think someone stole his bunnet, and he went in a huff. I can imagine in a few years, when Tassie still doesn't have an AFL team, I'll see a Believe bar wrapper in the gutter and think, oh yeah, I remember that...what was all that about? And shouldn't it be Believe! The ! makes it more, er, believable...

I had a much better idea than renaming the Mars Bar - bring back DMCs. Younger people don't remember the DMC, and to be honest, there are times I think I made them up - however, they were a pre M&M Cadbury prototype, M&Ms the size of a dinner plate. I've just seen an advert for the Chocolate Lovers ball at the casino in a couple of weeks -a change of pace for the casino in not holding singles balls where Sea FM DJs get casual sex set up for them - and the only way you could get me to go would be to tell me that DMCs were available in the foyer. No doubt it will be a well attended event, and, again, a fair night out for the gentleman who likes the larger lady (tying us back to Cheryl Haworth again). I would think that the Believe bar will have a stall at the chocolate lovers ball, although I was talking to a girlfriend of mine today, and she says that we're wasting our time with all this chocolate nonsense, all we need is Jess Veronica to, in her next nude shoot, discreetly wear a Tassie logo tattoo, and we'll get all the publicity we need. And besides, anyone who has attended a local football game surely knows it's the Cherry Ripe that's the chocolate bar of choice. Especially at Penguin, where they bought a job lot of 2350 palettes of Cherry Ripes in the 80s, and have been selling them ever since. Local football is also the last bastion of the Wagon Wheel, but that's an entirely different story.

It's back to the drawing board then Paula...and back to the wedding reception for me, Cheryl hates it when I'm late...

The new Anne Maree Cooksley and the fine art of dating footballers

KasiaZ
Originally uploaded by JungsPN

I was really pleased to wake us this morning in a transcendent glow that everyone is waking up to what a terrible coach Mick Malthouse is, that oil is getting cheaper, and most of all, that Anne Maree Cooksleys mantle as Australias premiere model slash actress slash champagne sipper at a premiere is under threat. Somehow, it made it into the newspaper that Chadwick Models star model Kasia Z, exciting, the ex girlfriend of Grant Smillie, has possibly, maybe, if you squint, got off with Lance Franklin, the Hawthorn player. I'm excited by this, as I'm excited we're entering a golden age of AFL Wags, of kiss and tell exposes in the Herald Sun, of players girlfriends ending up hosting travel segments and weather reports, taking the jobs of Jaynie Seal and Monique Wright. What Twigley started, I hope Z can continue - I was upset that the Herald Sun comments section on the story the Miss Z may have snogged Mr F to be disappointing. So many people took the time to say "who cares", but I was disappointed in this attitude. I think the pursuit of minor celebrity, of marrying a footballer or being someone like Jake Wall (TV hopeful) is an important aspiration. In fact, what is a blog, but not a desperate hope for some kind of minor fame - we all want it, don't pretend we don't.

I've mentioned a few times the important role the WAGs of the local football team in Penguin played - namely, at 1/2 time scraping the mud off the teams boots with a Paddle Pop stick. I was always aware growing up if a girl had to choose between average old me with my brains and collection of stickers, and a guy who could play football, I was always going to lose out to guys who could play football. This is accepted in Tasmania, although it is still a shame - I wouldn't mind having a crack at Miss Z, but it's not going to happen, I don't play football. This was made abundantly clear to me on one semi legendary round the pubs rumour/apocryphal story/but it was really true discussion when someone told me there was a game in the South of Tasmania one day where the rickety old manual scoreboard at a ground had the same score on it at 3/4 time as at 1/4 time. This was because one of the local girls had taken a footballer into the scoreboard, paid the attendants to leave, and, well, kept the scoreboard ticking over in another way. I've seen some very ugly footballers with some very ugly personalities, and yet they all date stunners. Oh well, such is life I guess, I think that most of the footballers I knew in Penguin ended up alcoholics or bankrupt or mired in some kind of scandal, almost like Gods payback for being able to pick the towns most beautiful girls. It was almost karmic allignment.

I don't know if there's a male equivalent of a WAG or a group equivalent of the WAGs. It'd obviously be the HABs, but it's not really as punchy. I certainly didn't date, say, the beloved and lovely Kathryn Harby, the worlds best looking netballer, but I did secretly have a relationship with a netballer at the local level for months, albeit, one of the worlds laziest relationships. I went to one function as a handbag, a HABag if you will (I like that) with her, at the casino, that I snuck out of the house to go to. It was something, I think a best and fairest dinner, or an end of season function. What was interesting was that all the netballers got up and danced really vigorously while the males (and lets be honest, the lesbian life partners) who were brought along uncomfortably gathered in the corner - a glimpse into Brownlow medal night, as we picked at our shrimp cocktails and discussed generic bland topics. My girl ended up being the good samaritan and taking some of the girls home, so I stood there, idly biting my nails, and I felt really uncomfortable as the girls talked about their sexual conquests, how much they were going to drink, how much sex they were all going to have in Germany, and the size of their boyfriends, er, manhood. As a study in role reversal, it was a classical night, I really should have taken a pen. I didn't like being a handbag, but I was still in at least some kind of inner circle that was exciting, had cheap drink and delicious prawn cocktail. No wonder girls line up to go the Brownlow...

I think back to that night a lot, it was definitely a really strange night, I ended up standing outside waiting for a cab in the rain like some kind of discarded minor celebrity groupie. I also think back to a night at Crown, when a footballer from Melbourne, and by that I mean the team, not just the city. One of their players, off a big win, was stumbling through the casino clearly on drugs. Our party looked over and saw him stumbling through, trying to spin the chocolate wheel and take chips off peoples tables. Security, genuinely, was awe struck that he was even there, and was letting him do it, until he tried to grab someones wig off their head. At that point, security had to intervene, and they threw him out, into the car park, and no doubt went off to phone their contacts at the Herald Sun with a juicy story. We saw him an hour later, lying in the gutter, barely moving, and we were going to take a photo, and he looked like the single greatest hobo in the entire world. At which point his impossibly angular, impossibly glamourous, impossibly blonde girlfriend in a million dollar dress looked at him, drunk off her head, muttering "some place you got us to sleep tonight fucker" and lay down in the gutter beside him, wrapping herself around him. Nice work, I guess, if you can get it...

Welcome to the world Kasia, yer gonna love it...

There's a Hot Dog Store where the creatures meet

There's this advert on Foxtel right now (no, not Maori Poppins) where this girl in her underwear says that she likes guys with back fat and a hairy back, guys who watch a lot of football, guys who don't buy her flowers and guys go to strip clubs. The tagline is "The Girlfriend" and whatever the alcoholic beverage is is the ultimate bourbon, as she is the Ultimate girlfriend, you see. However the ad just creeps me out - she seems too confident in herself, like she's planning something. If she was so carefree, I'd just think she was going to stab me in the head as soon as I was asleep. Maybe it's just me, what would I know, but I suspect she's up to something. Maybe in a later version of the ad...

Anyway, it's pretty easy to tell if a girl is really into you. I draw it from my relationship with the lost netball girl, and my future relationship with blue eye shadow girl, that a girl is really into you if she likes your friends (the girl in the ad is a little too keen to push the boyfriend out of the house) and is willing to drink with them, for this will wear off and eventually you'll have to stay at home. And if she's really into you in Hobart, she'll go with you to get late night Hobart food. I don't know if I've mentioned Mykonos yet in this place, but it's the place in Sandy Bay to go and get late night food. There's absolutely no recommendation to the place if you are sober, awake or don't like anything from salad to Red Bull to a Mars Bar being fried in batter, but if you drunk, hungover, tired, ill, sleepy or bewildered at 3 in the morning, there's no better place. Now, this is something someone told me - and it's something I didn't even realise - it's apparently a very good pick up point. Especially, how can I put this, if you like the larger lady. So I'm told. I'm told it's a chubby chasing kind of place. And I can sort of see how one guy in one group could hook up with another girl (large or otherwise) in another group while they sit on the bricks outside the real estate agency eating shockingly bad/shockingly good (it varies) chips. I don't know what happened to the two gay guys who last year seceded from Sandy Bay to make their own republic in their back garden, but if Mykonos seceded, the Tasmanian economy would lose the crucial drunk food tax money.

However, as much as people champion Mykonos, I'm not a fan (this might just be because I've never picked up there). I much prefer Hobarts hidden late night snack stop gem, the little Hot Dog shop in the middle of town, which seems to no longer be open, which is just near the VIP Driving school. I was told once at Customs that the people who worked in the hot dog shop were either reformed mental patients, homeless people, reformed drug addicts or failed reality TV stars (ooh, satire). I didn't really ever notice this, but I was then told that all the people who had been in prison were doing the cooking out the back, so they wouldn't scare the customers. I have no idea is this is true at all, I was just obsessed with the 70s style Space Invaders machine in the foyer, the delicious milkshakes, the incredibly dodgy hot dogs (was that really mustard?), the strange way every hot dog was named after a real dog and illustrated with a cartoon of that dog (what was a double poodle dog?), and the wonderful, ever present threat of violence in the place. The waiting area was incredibly small, so as you can imagine, a lot of people imagined that they were being looked at in a funny way, or that they were really first in line. Every time I went into the place, there was a fight, although oddly, I always seemed to walk in just as someone was being escorted out with a head wound. And I'll have a double rottweiller dog to go thanks...

The best memory I have of the place was I went there with a friend of mine just after I moved to Hobart, and when we went in, she was pretty much face to face with an ex of hers. There was really bad lighting, no one else in the store, and absolutely no room to move. This was really, really awkward because it was a tiny room, and I was absolutely no help, because I was all "wow, is that Space Invaders!" - there was just no way either of them could stand each other, and I think one of the staff members noticed the tension and decided to snap it by yelling "HEY! You know who was in here! A minute ago! KEVIN SHEEDY!" - this didn't work at all, since none of us liked Essendon, but it was worth a try. I know Kevin Sheedy is a man of the people, but I couldn't imagine him eating a late night hot dog, especially not in this place. So we all just kept standing in silence, until after about two minutes (and I was on level 2 by this stage) a cat just wandered in to the hot dog place. A Kylie Stray as we call it these days. I wasn't really thinking, so I said something to myself like "Ah, fresh meat for the hot dogs then" and the woman behind the counter has screamed at me "WE ONLY MINCE DOGS THANKS VERY MUCH!" and stormed off. I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure we never got our hot dogs that night, for no matter how bad late night food is, you can never, ever, ever, diss it.

Even if it is made by mental patients with minced dog...

Tassie vs The AFL

Melissa Mars
Originally uploaded by JungsPN

So today, she goes back to her old hair, and looks great again. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it was awful. I thought you all might like a Melissa Mars picture. Go and find an MP3 of Apocalips, the best song of 2008. Do yourself a favour, as Molly Meldrum would say between homophobic jokes about him on Hey Hey.

Since this is essentially a Tasmanian blog, you might be wondering, the hell aren't you talking about Tasmania trying to get into the AFL? For those of you who don't know, the Australian Football League (Aussie Rules) has decided to bring in a 17th expansion team on the Gold Coast, and an 18th expansion team in West Sydney. The team in West Sydney is going to fail completely because no one in West Sydney is interested in football, but this is the reason they will get a team, in case one day they are interested, while Tasmania is so interested in football, they don't need to put a team here because we already like football. A 10000 crowd in West Sydney will be amazing, 25000 in Tassie is unsustainable. Follow? Good, because the bogans don't. They are out in force with bumper stickers and radio phone ins, and it's doing no good at all because the AFL hates us, and completely patronises us. Let's make this something I can relate to - it's like if I fancy Leilani Kai and have a shot with her, and she fancies someone totally not interested in her even though I'm making lots of money and drive a fast car, because, even though he's ugly and a problem drinker, in 40 years he's inheriting a vast fortune - maybe - and has potential one day to be a catch. The simple answer to all of this would be for us all to be uninterested in football and get a soccer team, that's my idea, or get interested in monster trucks and have no one go to a football game ever again, but we're in too deep.

It's good though to have ambitions beyond your station, even if you know they can never be achieved. I went to school with this South African kid who used to always say "You can do anything! Just put your mind to it!" - and we'd come back with all these things like "So, what, if I wanted to play NBA basketball I could!" or "If I wanted to jump off a cliff and live, I could!" or "If I wanted to go out with Effie Michaels, I could!" (that was mostly me). He'd always tell us we could do anything, and when this kid dropped out of school to form a country line dancing academy, he was the only one to wish him well and believe in him. I wonder what became of him, he was always so positive, I'd hate for him to have a crappy life and be disabused of all his sunshine and energy. Luckily for me, I'm Scottish, ambitions are generally crushed pretty early on. I think the only kid with ambition when I went to school in Scotland was the girl with the ambition to sneakily grope every single boy in class during woodwork. I think she managed it now I think about it.

My major problem with a Tasmanian AFL team (apart from there's no way I'd support them vs Collingwood) is that all it does is create more footballers. There's a lot of footballers out there already, and they already get into Syrup without paying and get all the girls. It's probably one of my main regrets in life that I wasn't better at sport. On the North West Coast, it was drummed into everyone that if you played football, you could do anything you wanted. My Dad always remembers this one time when the girls netball team (one of whom was really hot) won the state title, and it was the footballers brought on stage to get congratulations for just winning a game. We all had to applaud them for one win after like ten straight losses. I know that when an AFL footballer gets into a nightclub, they take over the place, so it's going to be a nightmare thinking of them going into the Saloon in Launceston or down here at the Observatory (or "The O", as I found it it's called by hip kids). God help us all if, say, Tasmania beat Collingwood, the reception they would get. As I've said before, in Penguin, the WAGs of the local football team used to go in at 1/2 time and scrape the mud off the players boots with Paddle Pop sticks, so you can imagine what they'd do for an AFL footballer. And that's before we get to the "You think you are so great!" dickheads looking to punch them...

The other problem of course that always gets mentioned is that it will kill off local football, which I would hate. Although, to be honest, it's already dead. The last local football game I went to was part past players re-union and part creche, and the crowd was tiny. The last places the local football club means something is places like Dodges Ferry where there's absolutely nothing else to do. I've spent a couple of days down there, and to be honest, there's so much drinking, it's like the 80s in Penguin. I don't think it would matter if Tasmania had three AFL teams, the Dodges Ferry community would still go to the local football. In truth, this has nothing at all to do with the game, it's about 1 dollar Boags. And the ever present threat of on field violence. And more 1 dollar boags. It's just not like the old days when Peter Gilligan would talk about local football losses like someone had died. "City South...............", he'd say with a long, long pause..."No good...just......no good". Then they'd bring on, like, the coach of Longford and he'd talk like they'd won the champion of the universe title, and at then, he'd get a loaf of bread and a big ham. Ah, the good old days.

So there's a chance that getting an AFL team might create some local pride in the state, at the expense of local pride in the town, and that we might actually, you know, go to a football game to watch the football rather than drink and bitch about AFL. To be honest, given the AFL response, I'm not sure I want a team. After a while, if Leilani Kai keeps turning you down, you have to settle for Judy Martin. I'd love for local football to come back as it used to be, but it's not going to happen. After a while, we'll focus on what's really important - Muay Thai kick boxing, I'm sure they won't patronise us...

Love in the Club

So the most important thing that happened today at work wasn't that everyone is being nice to me, that the World Vision people were set up trying to get me to sponsor a second child, or that we changed the radio station because we were sick of listening to that "I Kissed a Girl" song (oh Katy Perry, will your wildness never cease). No, the most important thing that happened today was that someone I worked with had absolutely no idea who the Go-Gos were. I've come to realise I don't live in a very sophisticated crowd, so my love of Melissa Mars, $olal and Lykke Li aren't going to lead to many rich conversational avenues, but surely everyone knows who the Go-Gos are, don't they? If nothing else, they used to use Our Lips Are Sealed over the football scores on Channel 7 when it was time to turn away if you wanted to watch the replay without knowing who won (the other songs of course were "Secret", "Right On The Tip Of My Tongue" and that one about getting rattled). The problem with that is that just makes me think of Sandy Roberts, and lets not go there.

OK, so people don't know who the Go-Gos are, but thinking about it and just thinking of the last CD I bought, a compilation from the Moshi Moshi singles club, did make me think of where exactly in Hobart the trendy people go to hang out. Don't think for a second that I'm saying that I'm in any way trendy. God forbid, I'm sitting in a hooded Glasgow Celtic top and tracksuit trousers looking at a Collingwood Premiership posters. Plus, I'm an old man. However, I am quite trendy in my music tastes, and I can write my love of Hannah Montana and Britney Spears to irony. However, I'm completely unaware of anywhere with genuine trendy credentials that people go to in Hobart to hang out and discuss $olal and not Powderfinger. Obviously I wouldn't be invited, but I haven't even heard about the place in whispers. Is it the Observatory, with it's incredibly strict dress policy? Is it the Telegraph, with it's couches and pool tables and underage drinkers trying to outrun the police? Does Central Bar shut it's doors at 9pm and let in people who know a password to drink Cognac at 10 dollars a glass? Is it Bar-Cel-Ona, with it's hilarious Liberal facade? It's something that's really made me think all day - I've been thrown out of some of the biggest dives in Hobart for minor crimes, but I'm completely stumped having lived in this city for over a decade where I am supposed to go and drink if I win the lottery and join the Liberal party.

The other thing thats really made me wonder about this is that I read about a bar called Ssh in Sydney. This is a club that you have to get an SMS super secret password to get into, and basically know a friend of a friend of a friend of your hairdresser to even be allowed to mention in conversation. And when you get in there, it's like $10 a Boags draught, and you sit in a warehouse with cuddly wallpaper on milk crates while next door there's a pumping nightclub playing Hannah Montana and Dave Dobbyn which you can get into for five bucks. Which by definition is a lot better than our own Syrup, because you won't get a punch in the head. Now, if I'm sitting on a milk crate paying $10 bucks a beer discussing Focaut or Jung (and they want to give these people a 2nd AFL club?), I'm not having a great time, and it's probably because I'd feel under real pressure to enjoy myself. What if after all that effort, it's completely rubbish in there? Frankly there's only two ways ending up at Ssh could be a good night - you pick up, or you see someone famous. It's the only way a night at such a place sitting on a milkcrate can possibly be a good night. If you pick up a celebrity (why hello Emma George) all the better.

I think that's why places like this would die completely in Hobart - firstly, we only have about 4 celebrities, most of them cricketers, and they are down at Irish (vomit ban and all) with the rest of us. Secondly, it's a lot of effort to pick up just to sit on a milk crate chatting up a girl talking about Jung, when there's a Syrup down the road where you can impress girls twirling on a pole, which is much easier and less hassle (apart from the punch in the head from the bouncers). I know for a fact the only genuinely famous person I've ever seen in a Hobart nightclub was the coach of Fremantle Mark Harvey, and that was about it. My cousin saw Brett Lee pash a 16 year old (allegedly) at Isobar but does that even count? I have (don't tell anyone) been in trendy nightclubs in London and seen my friends go ape over Eastenders actors, but really, you go into these places and just look at people behind a velvet rope or find every table is reserved. It just doesn't happen in Tasmania - and down here, when it comes to beer, it's quantity, not quality...

So where do the trendy people go in Hobart? Home, at 9pm, to do drugs off the coffee table and mock the unfashionable I'd imagine. The rest of us, we've got the city to ourselves. Some nights, that really is all we ask. That, and a nice Dave Dobbyn tune...

The Router and The Damage Done

Did you know Pamela Anderson is sleeping in the Versace Hotel instead of the Big Brother House - con!

My computer was down last night, which was annoying, I think my router was just completely mangled or something for about 24 hours, and all it did was make me think about power cuts, electrical failures, community failures, the impending doom of the world - yes, when the lights go out, as opposed to what 5ive might have you believe, there's just more time to think. Plus it was really really cold, so being unable to blog really exacerbated how darn cold it is lately. Down here in Tasmania, the Internet service is amusingly rubbish to begin with. We're not exactly moving at the speed of sound down here and when little Wendy wants to download a pornographic movie or little Billy wants to download the new Coldplay album, there's a hell of a wait. You have to sit through an entire episode of On The Couch with Mike Sheahan just to get to Track 5 off your average picture disc. No one seems to know how to fix the problem, so we just have to put up with it. I guess that's life on an island. Someone should get Hermes Endakis on the case.

The first power cut I can ever remember was when I was about 6 - it was actually a really good experience, I remember it was the first time I ever got all the football cards in a set to make the big picture (something to do with the Sydney Swans - lousy national competition, I should have smelled a conspiracy theory even then) and I sat in the hall quietly assembling the big picture, without a fuss, and Penguin wasn't really the kind of place where you needed to be loaded up with electrical gadgets and it was 1984 anyway. All you really needed was a radio and the two channel TV, with a luxury item like a kettle. I have this really vague memory of a prolonged power cut once, say, two days, where they ended up putting people up in the local Masonic hall and giving them soup - I'd have been outraged by that these days now I'm an old grump, the idea of being on an adjoining property to homeless people, but then I thought it was what communities did, I think it's a bit sad in some ways that I don't feel like that. I think my neighbour is a complete tosser, I hate and despise my boss, and the only other person in my whole street I know is the guy across the road who answered the door to my Mum and Dad naked when they tried to deliver a package (matron) that came to our house. My street is Scotland is still quite close, but cliquey - everyone knows everyone, but 1/2 of them hate each other, especially the nosey fat lady who uses charity drives to try and get into peoples houses for a gossip. Frankly, I don't know which alternative is worse.

As much as I'd quite like to do more for my community, I think that a lot of times the fate of the world and my community and whether the economy is sinking under K-Rudd doesn't matter these days if your boss is a dickhead. We live in really small circles, and no one is a good neighbour, especially me. When my Internet went down last night, I kept thinking about how annoyed I was, and kicking the screen and trying to fix the router. Which of course should be a jumping off point for to realise that I should get a real sense of perspective and kids are dying in the world and what's one night without the Internet? Well, it's an annoyance - the kind that we end up with these days. There's no wars, no famines, no plagues and not usually any really dangerous jobs out there for us to worry about here in Tassie - all our concerns are financial, or gadget based, or mild inconveniences or disturbances at worst. This is what I've worried about this week - The form or otherwise of Dale Thomas (in particular, his media work), the fact Josh Fraser was a #1 draft pick in the same draft as Pavlich, Nathan Buckley being our coach in 2 years, Pamela Anderson sleeping at the Versace hotel and not actually in the Big Brother house, trying to get tickets for Peter Combe, getting woken up by a knock that was much too loud, my boss being evil, the repetition of Take A Bow being played on the radio, my inability to watch a video on Youtube, the impending fear that Jana Pittman is going to "run through the pain" and Lindsay Lohan going out with someone who looks like Shane Woewodin. It's not a giant list of concerns, and yet my Internet goes down and I think it's the end of the world - a sign of madness or a maddening sign? I'm really not sure, but it's made me think and try and get a grip on my life - and not go to bed in a disgusted sulk every time I can't get AUSTAR. I'm going to make an Alisa Camplin style effort to be more positive, and try and relax and lighten up.

Mind you, the fact that Leilani Kais website is no longer active, well, that's a real concern...

The worlds loneliest piano player

I am basically, in societys eyes, an old man, which allows me to reflect nostagically on a bunch of things that no one else seems to remember - Egg Flip Big Ms, Jaffa Orange Big Ms (as opposed to Jaffa Big Ms or Orange Big Ms, completely different Big Ms), Blackberry Cadbury Creme Eggs, Caramel Milky Ways, big chunky Jaffas, DMCs (the forerunner to M&Ms, but bigger and the size of a dinner plate), and best of all, lime Spiders. I'm not all that far away from writing some kind of horrendously awful childhood memoir all about Golden Gaytimes (an ice cream foreigners), Phil Maney Pies, Bubble O Bills and whatever happened to proper Butterscotch Ice Cream, with a proper butterscotch flavour and proper butterscotch colouring (I think caramel ruined the ice cream industry) but really, I've just realised I'm really, really hungry, and it's time for some toast. Mind you, even that isn't as good as it used to be, what with them thinning down the bread and the quality of bakers being on the decl...

Anyway, today I was talking to someone about Lime Spiders today, which if you don't know is lime syrup, ice cream, lemonade, sugar and probably whisky mashed up in a big giant glass of fun. Some people will try and tell you that Lime Spiders were the poor relation of the coke Spider, which is an area of great contention in certain Australia discussion circles. However, I would say that anyone who preferes a Coke Spider to a Lime Spider might as well prefer Velvet McIntyre to Leilani Kai, a Sega Genesis to an ATARI, Glenn Ridge to Tony Barber, Shane Woewodin to Dale Thomas, Ulverstone to Penguin or Darren Kappler to Gavin Brown. You could probably make a very sound argument for your position, you could debate to the ends of time, but you would be completely and utterly wrong. Families were basically only together in the 80s for the one day a week they could send the kids to the shops or the milk bar for a lime spider. No family was ever, ever kept together by a trip for a coke spider. And that is absolutely and completely true, so take your coke spider and go to the corner.

Penguin in Tasmania was just up the road from the city of Burnie, which, given the limited nature of shopping in Penguin (apart from the Soapbox) was like a trip to Paris, New York or Launceston. Now, we hated Burnie, not as much as we hated Ulverstone of course, but we still hated Burnie, made Burnie jokes, mocked the locals and their arrogance, and then ploughed into the car anyway and went off to Fitzgeralds or K-Mart to gawp in awe at racks of slacks or the latest games for the Commodore 64 and the great array of shops. Really, you can't overstate when you grow up in a small town the joys of going to a bigger town (or in Burnies case, a slightly bigger city) to do your shopping. Burnie really isn't a remarkable shopping metropolis now I've seen some of the world, but did I mention it had a K-Mart? Fitzgeralds was probably the most exciting shop though, it had a top floor that you could get at with a ramp. A ramp! It had an entire shelf full of He-Man figures so you always came back to Penguin with something good that you could show your friends. And of course you would go back to Penguin and tell all your friends that even though you had a great time, and brought a Ju-Jitsu Heman figure, the locals in Burnie were complete idiots and you wouldn't live there if they paid you. In Heman figures.

At the end of the day, or the end of the trip when your Mum had finally stopped looking at boring dresses, it was off to the Fitzgeralds cafe for a lime spider. Now, Fitzgeralds cafe was the worst cafe in the entire world. Worse even than the store Santas. The Sausage Rolls were awful, the biscuits tasted like sausage rolls, god knows what was in the macaroni and cheese (the only things ruled out were the macaroni and the cheese), and there was a strong smell of old people. And yet, I loved going there. It wasn't just the lime spiders, the best in the entire world bar none, but also even though I was really young, I spent hours studying the worlds loneliest piano player. In the midst of this dreck of a cafe, full of pissed off kids, dis-integrating families, old people waiting to die and canteen staff wondering where the goat meat sandwich was, was an old man sitting in the corner in a dinner suit and tux, playing classical music on a grand piano. His face was a mask of emotions, on the one hand utter professionalism as he concentrated on his Beethoven and Bach played from a sheet music rendition out of the middle of the Classical Composers series. On the other, contempt, no, not quite contempt...despair? Wondering where his life went? Why his classical training had him playing Bach to 6 year olds? He always looked sad, but stoic, like a captain leading his men to certain doom, but still pretending he could turn it all around.

You can see, I don't know many composers.

I always remember once, I was trying to pretend the chips were made of potatoes, when I caught his eye. With an imperceptible flash of his eyes and a shake of his head, he said a lot with his expression. He looked like the worlds loneliest man, and I've always remembered his face, his sad, desperate face, and then the stoicism he showed as he puffed out his cheeks, caught the eye of an old granny, and clammed up with a professional entertainment smile. I think he got away with it, but only just. I was proud of him, and learned a lot from him about the professionalism of doing your job, in the midst of a personal hell.

I'll try and be like him tomorrow, when I face the general public...like him, and blue eye shadow girl...

Hobart Airport

I told everyone I knew today Lindsay Lohan was a lesbian - no one was really interested. I probably need some new friends.

I'm different to a lot of people (and not just because I run a one man Leilani Kai fanclub) in that I really like hanging out in airports. I don't have any rhyme or reason for this, but I don't mind sitting sipping a nice coffee or reading a magazine specially imported from the UK two months before the regular edition comes out. I like watching couples split up and get back together. I like the sense of adventure that comes from watching people fly off, and above all, I really like Internet machines that charge a dollar for 10 minutes and then block every single website that mentions the word "darn" just in case a child looks at it. The ones in Scotland sometimes make a beeping noise when they block websites - you can't even look at a Vanessa Williams clip on Youtube without alerting the entire airport that you are some kind of sick pervert. Jordin Sparks, oddly, seems to be OK. My favourite airport in the entire world is Amsterdam, because it's a big straight line, and because it's positively filthy with a lot of dodgy looking men trying to sneak a look at porn. Ah, class.

Anyway, if you want to come to Hobart, or for that matter leave Hobart, you have to lob at Hobart Airport, on either a Jetstar or Virgin Blue plane. For some reason they got rid of my favourite thing in the airport, the big truck with all the luggage that parked in the middle of a warehouse and let everyone fight to get their bags. If you take a Jetstar into Hobart, you will land roughly on time on a very cheap plane after a ten minute delay that no one can figure out. If you land on a Virgin Blue plane, you'll probably be twenty minutes late, but convince yourself you had a much better flight because the plane is a bit nicer. We've come a fair way from the glory of Kendall Airlines, the only airline in the world where doing a complete 180 in mid air was considered a smooth ride. No one I know remembers Kendall Airlines down here, but I think we've all tried to shut out the horrors of Kendalls idea of what "turbulence" constituted. Once when I flew out of Burnie to go to Melbourne, I had to get on a Spitfire type military plane due to a pilots strike, with a big landscape painting bolted across as a "door" and a for once taken really seriously lecture on what to do in case we hit a mountain - so I really should stop whinging about Jetstar, now I think about it.

Hobart Airport isn't going to win any classic design awards and most people seem to hate the place. However what I do love about Hobart Airport is the fact that there really is no upper class to the joint - like I said, you either land Jetstar or Virgin Blue, and you'll be in economy, and you'll walk across the tarmac and wait for your bags and look at the world WILKOMMEN in the twinkling lights like the rest of us - so it doesn't matter if you are a celebrity, a faux celebrity or have just won the lottery. You are in that crappy lounge watching the Today show on TV with the rest of us. Cricket teams? On a Jetstar. Football teams? Guess what the choice is? That Australian band I was on the plane with when I thought we were going to crash in the Tasman and wondered if it was worth dying if it meant I took them with me? Get on the Jetstar and stop your rock like posturing. My favourite moment like this wasn't our state Premier Paul Lennon hiding in a coffee shop so disgruntled voters wouldn't hassle him, it was all around dickhead TV, celebrity Carlton cheer squad member and radio football commentator Tim "Timmy" Lane sitting a row in front of me trying to read a book while two drunk Carlton supporters sitting next to him tried to discuss Tasmanias bid for an AFL team and whether Eddie Betts was better than Sean Charles. Every part of his face was screaming for help and the comfort of business class. Oh, that'll teach you Timmy to hate Collingwood so much...

The final reason I think everyone should spend a day at Hobart Airport is this - no one has ever, ever landed in anything other than terrible weater. I'm not sure why this is, but I promise every single time you touch down in Hobart and get off the plane, it's absolutely freezing. Even if the sun is shining, even if they tell you on the plane it's 38 degrees in Hobart, I promise you you land in rain and cold weather every single time. Adam Hills got ten minutes out of that during a stand up show. There must be a scientific explanation for it. It's like a lot of odd things about Hobart - the strange obsession of our nightclubs with Dave Dobbyn, the way the crappier a radio show is, the longer it stays on the air, the fact that we never, ever make anything out of Errol Flynn or Taz to try and promote the state, but hope Ricky Ponting will do the job, and the way that the coffee in the shops at the airport, unlike anywhere in the centre of the city, actually, crazily, tastes like coffee. Something Starbucks should probably try one day.

Ooh, an anti Starbucks reference, how very "The Age"...

The Middle Of Nowhere

I'm really really proud to have lived in Penguin on the North West Coast of Tasmania when I was younger. I lived across the road from the football ground, the hub of the community back in the days before AFL ruined everything that was once good about local football. I loved the jumper the Penguin team wore, since it was dark blue and light blue vertical stripes, a design no one else in Australia had. I loved Hiscutt Park, although I liked it better before it had a name and got a bit poncy. I loved how incredibly fierce and violent the girls basketball competition was (which has lead to my lifelong love of womens wrestling I think). I loved the Penguin shaped rubbish bins. I loved the local milk bar, I loved that on one day we got a new Soapbox and a new Sock Shop, and I loved the long sandy beach that seemingly went on forever, only to come to a crashing halt on a big pile of stones and rocks. It really was a lovely place to spend a childhood, and I really have a lot of local pride (hey, theme!) for the area.

Of course, when I was a bit older, I hated the place as well. Nothing happened. Ever. It was like someone hit the pause button in 1984. It really was the kind of place where Sunday seemed to last a month, and the month seemed to last a year. It was pretty predictable as well. You could tell what day of the week it was after a while by the cakes in the window or by who was collecting their mail. When we moved back there, it was like the entire world had stopped moving for me. Stupid things would bother me - if I saw the same girl two days in a row, I would think life was really boring and want to see different people. We didn't have proper TV, and I couldn't get Irn Bru. Stupid little things that add up to a million little things that add up to massive despair. I would lie in my room immensely frustrated that nothing was happening. Secretly, I would sneak out of the house late at night away from my parents and just walk around. That's why I know what was on sale late at night in the park - I think I ended up selling some tapes myself there one night, although this may be a trick of my imagination (like thinking Chris Tarrant was ever a good player).

A lot of people in conversation ask me if I've ever been truly happy or truly sad, and to be honest, I was both in one night. Now, I don't have any real regrets in my life apart from the usual - I've never left a girl stranded at the altar, I've never shot a man just to watch him die, my regrets are probably to do with time wasted (and never meeting Vilimaina Davu). I could have worked harder, I could have done more with my life, but I don't regret it. It is what it is. But I wonder what my life would have been like if I had really run away the night that I planned to. I couldn't see any good at all in Penguin, and absolutely no way out of my lonely boring life, and so, one night, I went to run away, took some meagre possessions, two hundred dollars and set off out the house really quietly, determined to have a new life away from this town that I couldn't stand.

Now, everyone has done this I'm sure, but I really wasn't doing it for attention, I was genuine about somehow getting back to the UK. Problem was, I decided to sleep in the Penguin football club grandstand. This wouldn't have been a bad thing, especially considering someone (oh the trust of the early 90s) had left two doors unlocked, and I could get easy access to food (all the Orange Jaffa Big Ms and Cherry Ripes a boy could want) but as I was just about to go to sleep (my memory might be off here, I might have been sleeping in the middle of the ground, to be hardcore) I saw the most beautiful star I've ever seen in my entire life. It wasn't just twinkling, it was glowing so brightly, it was illuminating the whole town, lighting up the sky, making it impossible to sleep, but also lighting up the houses dotting the skyline, almost to the point I could see people individually, fighting, arguing, loving, living. Everyone with their own problems, everyone with their own lives, but all of them facing up to them as best they could. It really remains an important part of my life, the night I realised that I could never run away from myself, and while from time to time I've tried, I always really remember that clearly - and how beautiful Penguin looked on that cold October night.

And that's why I always try and have as much local pride as I can - the people in Tasmania are just good people, making the best of what they have. Even with a terrible radio station...

Inspiration

So they said this morning that DJ had sex in the back of a car on the waterfront docks and the car was a Barina. I'm absolutely outraged - who drives a Barina in this day and age?

Anyway, enough about that. The first thing I want to write about today is inspiration. At a certain point every single person with a blog gets a little bit bored or lacks something to say, and today I really didn't have any interesting ideas. I could try and find Anne-Maree Cooksley on Facebook, but that wouldn't really work. However I did think today about my heroes and inspirations, and really reflected on the fact that...well, I don't have any. Much as I fancy Vilimaina Davu, I don't think I'm suited to go out and play netball. Again. Adam Ant and Britney Spears both went a bit crazy, so they are out. Much as Paul Medhurst is the only Collingwood player keeping me sane, I only draw so much inspiration from him. At least he turned his life around. I'm not sure Jodie Low or Alisa Camplin are big on conversation. And there's only so much inspiration I can take from the devine Leilani Kai - I can't really imagine solving lifes problems with a crafty chair shot and a hook of the tights. Besides, I'm Scottish - suspicion of our betters is really all we have. Anyone with a hero is likely to be beaten up in the playground for being a big jessie. Even if it is Vilimaina Davu.

Reflecting on it though, I did have a hero growing up, the same as any small Tasmanian boy - David Boon. David Boon if you don't know was our only visible successful Tasmanian, a mainstay of the Australian cricket team. There was a lot to admire about David Boon - he was a short, fat bloke with a redoutable moustache. He was able to get stitches without painkillers. He looked like a bloke you could have a beer or a BBQ with, and he was the strong silent type, tough and hard. He also could play cricket like a demon. How proud we were whenever he made a gritty 50 at the WACA, or took a great catch off Peter Taylor, or sang like David Byrne on the late show. He probably doesn't know just how much we all looked up to him. Now, I met him a few years ago, and he was a grumpy arsehole when I asked for his autograph, which is kind of interesting isn't it? I spent all my childhood looking up to him and practicing my cover drive, in return for a grunt. I really should write that you should never meet your heroes they'll only disappoint you, but I couldn't really fault him for being himself. Everyone has flaws, and by that stage of my life I realised that. There's only so far you can take drawing inspiration from a celebrity before they let you down. Inspiration has to come from something more tangible, a moral code or a reason to get up in the morning, friendship or real love. Had I met him at a younger age, I'd have been disappointed, but I was 21 - what business did I have bothering him? I took what I could from the little image on the TV screen, that was enough, I had nothing to take from the real life, slightly full up, stuck at the casino and feeling angry he wasn't at home real life version. He was simply being human.

Of course, a celebrity can inspire through their deeds, but I don't think they can inspire as people anymore, not with people gossiping about them all the time. Anyway inspiration isn't always easy to dispense. I went to a local football game a few years ago, where the score was, say 48 points to 1 at 1/4 time. The good thing about local football in Australia is that you can go onto the ground and listen to the coach address the team, and of course, you head straight to the losing team to hear what the coach has to say because it's always very intense. The coach of the team that was losing gathered all his players, turned purple and shook his finger. "More rope?" he said sternly. "More fucking rope?" he said even more sternly. Everyone took in this wisdom and scratched their head. "That's what you fucking asked for! More fucking rope! All fucking week, more fucking rope! Give us more fucking rope! I give you more rope...and you fucking hung yourselves!" - and the thing was, no one had any idea what he was talking about. The players all looked completely bewildered, which made him angry and incoherent and mumbling something about being as weak as netball players (sorry Vilimaina Davu ). Here was a man at the end of his tether, reaching into his soul and trying to say something articulate, something inspirational, something deep and meaningful - and he was too inarticulate, too angry and too bewildered to come up with something. It was a wonderfully human moment, although at the time, it was just really funny.

So what is my inspiration? The hope that tomorrow will be better than today is all the inspiration I ever need to go on. Oh, and Peggy Lee Leather. Definitely, definitely, Peggy Lee Leather...